


Where Regina Falls in Love With Emma's Hair (First)

by red_streaks



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 14:11:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3384650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_streaks/pseuds/red_streaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma might be sleep deprived and maybe she doesn't have an accurate portrayal of time this early, but after her bottom touches the chair, Regina's hands stay on her shoulders for, two, three seconds longer than necessary. "</p>
<p>What the fu-"</p>
<p>Regina is honest to god standing behind her, touching her hair, and running something through it that sounds like a comb, which is insane because Regina didn't have a purse with her and-</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Regina Falls in Love With Emma's Hair (First)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is just a piece to help me with writer's block. It's basically just a bunch of fluff and silly things. Hope you enjoy!

The first time it happens, Emma is just the right amount of sleep deprived to not question it. She comes down the stairs swiping at drool on her chin and at the tangled hair falling on her eyes. Her eyes are still crusty and it's so godamn early that she makes her way with her eyes sitting low, already clad in her sports bra and running pants. Her shirt and shoes are somewhere downstairs and if she can just make it down without tripping and stumbling, she can put clothes on and not traumatize her kid.

Of course, she trips.

A step comes up sooner than she thought and her foot must have caught somewhere for her to stumble down the last three steps. Her eyes are still closed because she knows Mary Margaret rises just to open the curtains and fuck with her, and the wall must have moved a little since the last time she saw it because she turns and hits her face.

A snicker is snickered (it's early, okay?) at her right and she finally opens her eyes to a room full of people sitting down. She freezes and is painfully aware of the nest that is her hair, and she can practically feel where it ends two feet above her head. She sneaks her hand up, and eight pairs of eyes blink at her. She spots her clothes on one corner at the same time she realizes Regina is in the room, and her midriffs not covered, and about four people are staring and only two are not leering, including her dad. He's staring with a sort of appreciation that borders on envy and before she can yell something stupid like "count them and weep", she spots Regina not looking and looking, and Mother Superior is doing a weird heated thing with her eyes that snap Emma back to reality. She stumbles to the kitchen, and now four pair of eyes become eight because Emma still doesn't have a shirt, and she's pretty sure she put her pants of backwards. She reaches the cabinet and slams her head against it. Because it's still early and embarrassment slides off Emma as soon as it hits her, she stays there until she's breathing deeply.

And that's how Regina finds her.

She wakes to a clearing of the throat, and when she turns around, still stumbling and half asleep, Regina is holding her shoes and a shirt with a slight look of disdain that's makes her nose scrunch up (adorably??) because Emma is a slob and that's the shirt she wore the last time she ran and sweated. She rises her arms again to pat down the yellow nest that has taken over her head and she succeeds on leaning back on the countertop.

"Hey?" She's still trying to keep her hair out of her face and ignoring the fact that she was in a deep sleep a minute ago.

Regina has that black skirt and red shirt outfit thing with heels she's seen before, which is a weird thing to wear to a meeting in a loft. Emma's pretty sure David's still wearing slippers. It doesn't stop her from looking. Since her impulse control is at the bottom of a coffee cup this morning, she isn't even subtle about it.

"Good morning, dear" There's an odd squeak at the end of Regina's sentence that Emma ignores because she remembers that Regina is scary good at aiming the nearest objects at her head, which is currently her only pair of ratted running shoes.

"So, uh, crime prevention meeting?"

Regina has dropped the shirt and shoes at the closest stool to her, and moved to the coffee pot to Emma's right. Emma follows her movement and her hair falls again across her face, which, okay, is annoying at six in the morning and maybe she could use one of the knives to cut it or-

"Your parents wanted to take inventory of the town after well, Zelena." Regina is pushing a coffee cup into her hands, and her finger tips lightly run across Emma's knuckles for a brief second before she is standing a good four feet across from her.

"This early?" Emma is trying very hard not to drink the scalding hot coffee in her hands and focus on Regina.

"Some people have work to attend to. I'm surprised you know how to function before 11 a.m., Miss Swan." Which is unfair and not deserving of that stupid smirk Regina is throwing her way. She's very good at shereffing in the morning, it just so happened that Ne- Bae stayed up half the night crying and sputtering.

"Yeah, well some people are not used to waking up at the butt crack of dawn every day" she tries running a hand through her hair that ends with her grimacing and staring pityingly at the floor. Regina looks down to her hands for a moment before she rounds the kitchen island and pushes Emma by the shoulders to the nearest chair.

Emma might be sleep deprived and maybe she doesn't have an accurate portrayal of time this early, but after her bottom touches the chair, Regina's hands stay on her shoulders for, two, three seconds longer than necessary. "

What the fu-"

Regina is honest to god standing behind her, touching her hair, and running something through it that sounds like a comb, which is insane because Regina didn't have a purse with her and-

"I don't know why you insist on having a five year old's haircut, nor why it is so unkept."

She's gotten the left side of her head at a reasonable height now, and Emma is enjoying the sensations a little too much to respond with anything other than a hum, and maybe a yawn. She's got her eyes closed and if Regina weren't holding her head, she'd probably be nodding off. She's half asleep again when she feels Regina part her hair through the middle, and her deft fingers are twisting and pulling. Soon, she has her hands down the middle of Emma's back, the blonde's hair still in her hands, and Emma can feel the warmth of Regina's body in a lazy, content way. She's tying the band around the braid when Emma takes her first sip of her coffee and is a little surprised that Regina Perfect Mills knows how she takes it. It throws her off a little but she's also warm to her toes that Regina still has her hands on her hair.

In a show of perfect timing, Emma's phone goes off, the shrill noise startling Regina back, taking the warmth with her. Emma's eyes snap open and look around frantically for her phone. She lunges for it, the damned thing is on the opposite side of the island and she almost knocks a stool over in her haste.

"He-hello?" Emma is a little breathless and wide awake now, still in her sports bra and shoeless feet.

Her eyes go a little wide before she chugs the coffee, and tries putting on her shirt one handed.

"No, no, I didn't forget, just a slow morning."

She's got one hand through the shirt, and she's blindly hoping her head pops out of the right hole, all while trying to talk through the phone.

"Nope, I'll be right there, give me five minutes, tops."

She's hopping on one foot, putting on one shoe and cramming her phone in between her ear and shoulder.

"I'll be right there, I swear. Seriously, don't cry"

She's got both shoes on, and is sliding her braid from underneath her shirt when she catches Regina's amused eyes and sticks her tongue out, like a goddamn five year old.

"Okay, okay. Bye. No, no. Bye?"

Her shoe laces are untied and she's looking for her watch in one of the drawers when Regina coughs daintily and says,

"You put your shirt on backwards, dear."

Emma finds the watch underneath some sticky notes and turns arounds, half paying attention.

"What?" At Regina's pointed look, Emma looks down and sees the shirt.

She grabs the back collar and pulls it over head, already walking to the door, oblivious to Regina's sudden color change.

"Thanks Regina. Talk to you later?"

Emma is bouncing down the stairs when she feels the weight of her braid, and for the second time that morning, she trips down the steps.

* * *

 

 

The first time it happens, Regina is half-listening to Snow drone on about the little house near the forest, and the magical precautions the town should take to ensure the safety of its citizens. Snow keeps on throwing loving looks at David, who is sitting next to her and always in contact with some part of her body. Their outer thighs are flushed against each other and Snow's hands brush against his as she talks animatedly. Regina is disgusted. Regina wants to take a pillow and smother the two idiots, or maybe reach into the folds on Granny's skirts for a weapon she's sure she carries and hurt somebody. Being in amicable terms with Snow White does not mean acting as her magical cure it all and keeping her magic stored at the absence of a crisis. She's close to standing up and leaving, banging the door open with _magic_ and storming out when the spawn of her two idiot enemies comes stumbling down the stairs.

The first thing she sees is Emma's matching socks and tight pants, next her hands clinging to the rails. She's moving slowly, barely putting one foot in front of the other, and still swaying and stumbling down. Snow continues talking, and what Regina sees next makes her part her lips and raise her eyebrows. Emma has abs. Plural, solid, existing, and distracting abs. She's just wearing a black sports bra that Regina's only seen the straps of, and has her eyes closed. She's blindly descending the stairs, clearly not fully awake. Regina would be concerned about her eyes being closed if she didn't already know through Henry that Emma is half blind and 'can not be trusted with passing a kitchen knife during dinner without her contacts.'

The last thing she sees is Miss Swan's hair. Calling it a birds nest would be severely degrading to a birds hard work and natural skills. Emma's hair is in literal knots on top of her head. There are a few strands that curl up at her neck and down her back, but for the most part, her hair is more than a few feet on top of her head without any sort of support. It's terrifying and amusing at the same time and she is just about to take out her phone and send a picture to Henry, who is most likely still asleep, when Emma tries to (adorably???) swipe the hair out of her face. She trips on lliterally _nothing_ and comes crashing down the last few steps. This gets Snow's attention and she finally stops talking long enough to look at her daughter, who emits a faint ' _ssshhhh swan_ ' and tries to turn towards the kitchen. Of course, for the past thirty or so years, there has been a wall, and Regina who does not live in this happy _happy_  apartment knows it inside out. The same cannot be said for the brave savior, who crashes head first into it.

Ruby and Belle snicker to her left and suddenly Emma is facing the whole crowd in her barely there outfit. Her eyes go wide for a moment before she squints to see more clearly who is in the room. Her arms rise to pat her hair, and Regina's eyes snap to the muscles in her arms and back down to her stomach and back up to her arms. Mother Superior is staring coldly at Emma who is probably breaking a couple of Jesus rules or something but Regina is staring hard at her muscles and can't seem to stop. Emma on her part keeps squinting at people and at a corner in the room, where Regina sees a pile of clothes. Emma squints at Mother Superior for a full second before her eyes go wide and she trips towards the kitchen. The room goes quiet for a second before Regina and Hook stand up at the same time. She sends Hook a look that sits him down with a gruff ' _right_ ' and looks at the corner Emma was squinting at. She takes the smelly clothes and goes to look for the blonde in the kitchen. She sees her slumped against the countertop, head resting on the cupboards and for a moment she is distracted by the sight of the blonde's back. She recovers by clearing her throat and Emma turns to her, the hair on her forehead flat, and falling to her eyes. She tries to move it back, and she's so pleasantly out of sorts that she sways a little.

"Hey?" Emma Swan has bed hair and apparently, a bed voice. It isn't attractive, or sensual, it's just gruff and so very Emma with her abs and arms and toned legs that Regina may have squeaked a little when she greeted the blonde. Emma is talking and Regina tries to come up with answer for what she suspects is a question about the meeting Snow called. She drops the items in her hands in the stool next to the kitchen island and makes her way to give the blonde coffee. Emma makes the same move towards her hair and Regina is going to drop her coffee if the girl just won't stop, because yes, Emma Swan is attractive, but she is also infuriating and stubborn and pretty much a spoiled savior.

She gives Emma her coffee and tries to make fun of Emma's behavior. She's got too dark marks under her eyes that make the lines around them look even sharper. She isn't worried about the savior, she's merely looking out for their sons best interest which is not a sleep deprived mother.

Right, then.

Emma tries to run her hands through her hair, and Regina has just about had it with this girl's mess of a head. It is long, and beautiful, and frames Emma's face just right when it's curled and falling down her back. If she could just take _care_ of it, Regina wouldn't be compelled to do what she is about to do.

She all but drags Emma to a chair and conjures a brush into her hand. Emma is easy to lull, and soon she has a half asleep savior close to her and half a head of flat, combed hair. Soon enough, too soon, Emma's hair is combed and braided, and she's just tucking in inexistent flyways when Emma's phone rings. She lunges for the shrieking object and starts talking animatedly, much like Snow. Before long, Emma is trying to get dressed while talking on the phone, and she is just adorably clumsy and in such a hurry to get everything on that Regina cannot resist the amused smiled that starts at her lips. She finishes the conversation with her shirt backwards and reigns almost purrs the words out.

Emma, of course, _of course_ takes her shirt of in front of Regina and she has to avert her eyes unless she wants to do something silly and uncalled for like _braiding the Saviors hair_. She's on her way out again, and her braid is bouncing off her back and Regina has no idea who called or what the conversation was about.

She just hopes Snow will make morning meetings a regular occurrence.


End file.
